


Just The Way You Are

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn looks at her and wonders if Beth will be so easy-going when she's older.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just The Way You Are

Beth is born with a small tuft of caramel-colored hair. Quinn brushes it back, frowning when it springs back up stubbornly. She wouldn’t have minded Puck’s eyes, or his skin tone. But his mohawk? She definitely minds that.  
  
The door swings open and slams against the wall but Beth doesn’t even stir, nestled against Quinn’s bare chest, sleeping soundly. Brittany winces, though, and closes the door almost soundlessly, tiptoeing to the edge of the bed. She pauses, but Quinn grabs her wrist and tugs:  _come up here._  Brittany folds her legs up and settles back against the hospital pillow, wrapping an arm around Quinn’s stomach, Beth’s tiny feet resting in the crook of Brittany’s elbow. She rests her head on Quinn’s shoulder and the top of her hair – still a little scratchy with hairspray from their performance – brushes against Quinn’s jaw. Quinn smiles and almost winds the loose strands around her fingers, but Beth whimpers quietly in their arms and Brittany’s hair ends up draping across Quinn’s shoulder instead, just touching the tiny tip of Beth’s nose. Impulsively, Quinn kisses the side of Brittany’s head, inhaling the too-sweet scent of strawberries.  
  
“Look at her hair,” Brittany murmurs. “It’s all…”  
  
“Ugly?”  
  
Brittany bumps her forehead against Quinn’s jaw gently. “I was going to say poofy.” Her fingers move in a slow circle over Quinn’s hip.” It’s not ugly. She’s beautiful.”  
  
“She is,” Quinn agrees. “But her hair-”  
  
“Will grow out,” Brittany interrupts. “And lighten. I bet it’ll look just like yours.” She giggles quietly. “Or maybe she’ll just never grow out of the mohawk and it’ll look just like Puck’s.”  
  
Quinn looks at Brittany, feels her hair against her cheek, and wonders if Beth’s hair will be so blonde when she’s older.  
  
\---  
  
Her mother bounces Beth up and down to a tune that sounds something like ‘Hot Trot to Boston.” Quinn has a vague memory of being in the same position: tiny fingers clutching her mother’s pearl necklace, head lolling back, giggling loudly, bare feet kicking empty air. She remembers warm, trusting hands against her back, holding her up. Now, as another set of hands slide around her back, she leans into them the same way Beth does: eyes closed, carefree.   
  
Brittany pulls the two of them back against the couch, her warm, peppermint-flavored breath skimming across her cheek. “She’s so pretty when she laughs,” she hears. Her eyes follows Beth up and down and up again.  
  
Quinn’s cousin Leigh Anne, sitting on the ground in front of them, tilts her head back against the lip of the couch to look at them. “That guy who stopped by earlier? Your mom called him Noah. He’s the father, right?”  
  
Quinn recognizes the glint in Leigh Anne’s eye for what it is and shakes her head. “Don’t go there,” she warns.  
  
“He’s hot.”  
  
“He has a nipple ring,” Brittany offers, combing Quinn’s hair back, tying it into a knot gently. Her fingertips brush against Quinn’s bare neck:  _it’s okay. Calm down._  
  
Brittany’s seemingly non sequitur works. Leigh Anne immediately frowns and recoils a little. “Oh.” She turns and props her chin up on the seat of the couch. “What about that Asian kid who was here? He doesn’t have a nipple ring, does he?”  
  
Brittany leans forward, dislodging Quinn, and starts gossiping in low tones that Quinn can barely hear over A Christmas Story starting for the eighth time and Beth giggling and her mother’s brother Nicolas telling the story of how they built a tree fort in their backyard once upon a forever ago.  
  
The nervousness of being here, with her daughter and Brittany, surrounded by family she hasn’t seen in years, thanks to her father, dissipates as easily as Leigh Anne laughs at something Brittany says. There was really nothing to be nervous about, she knows. Beth is adorable and easily managed; Brittany is adorable and easily managed and smiles at everyone, even Quinn’s Great Aunt Anne.  
  
Quinn looks at Brittany, feels her hand against her knee, and wonders if Beth will be so friendly when she’s older.  
  
\---  
  
Quinn turns only for a moment, rifling through the baby bag of Beth’s toys, but by the time she turns back around, Beth is at the top of the slide, teetering wildly from side to side. The scream gets caught in her throat, like every bad Lifetime movie she’s ever seen. Her arms hang uselessly at her side and her feet seem cemented into the ground.  
  
A gust of wind blows her off balance. When she rights herself, she realizes the gust is really Brittany, climbing the jungle gym with practiced ease, as if she’s back in high school, climbing the pyramid on Sue Sylvester’s orders. Quinn feels the air rush back into her lungs as Brittany scoops Beth into her arms, hoisting her into the air. Beth laughs and kicks her legs wildly, trying to squirm out of Brittany’s hold. Her blonde hair – Brittany was right. It grew longer and lighter so quickly Quinn hardly recognized her one morning when Brittany brought her down to breakfast – blows up into Brittany’s face and Quinn lets out a laugh. Or what a laugh should sound like, if it wasn’t mixed with a sigh of relief.  
  
She watches as Brittany sits at the top of the slide and settles Beth between her legs, locking them tightly around her. Brittany must say something, because Beth shouts  _“yes!”_ , the only word she really says except for  _“no!”_ , and suddenly they’re off, careening down the plastic chute.  
  
“Yes!” Beth shouts again, tumbling off the slide. Quinn meets her there, holding her arms out. Brittany unfolds her legs and stands, wobbling a bit as she reorients herself. “Yes!” Beth yells a third time. She tugs on the bottom of Brittany’s shorts:  _again, again, again_  and ambles back towards the stairs leading to the slide.  
  
“You okay?” Quinn runs her palm across Brittany’s forehead, brushing her bangs back.  
  
Brittany smiles, eyes closed. “Woozy. I forgot how dizzy slides make me.”  
  
Quinn laughs quietly and holds Brittany’s face still in both her hands. “Of course they make you dizzy.”  
  
“The twisting and the turning,” Brittany explains, cracking one eye open. Her hands wrap around Quinn’s wrists, tugging them away gently. Quinn blushes when Brittany ducks her head, pressing a kiss to the middle of her right palm before dropping Quinn’s hands back to her side.  
  
She’s turning and chasing after Beth again before Quinn can say much, taking the staircase to the slide two at a time and helping Beth up carefully, all signs of dizziness gone.  
  
Quinn looks at Brittany, feels her lips still pressed against her palm, and wonders if Beth will be so resilient when she’s older.  
  
\---  
  
A wet, sloshing sound echoes down the hall – that’s Quinn’s cue that something might be terribly wrong. It wasn’t when the sound of Beth and Brittany laughing stopped; it wasn’t when Brittany let out a small shriek – because that could have been anything, really; it wasn’t even when it sounded like the washing machine was going off in the bathroom. It’s the wet, sloshing noise that really pulls her head out of her philosophy book. It’s almost imperceptible, but she can hear it, distantly.  
  
“Britt?” she calls out cautiously, putting her book down. Quinn is comfortable and doesn’t really want to move from where she’s jackknifed herself into the corner, but when Brittany doesn’t answer, Quinn sighs and marks the page she’s on. “Beth?” she tries.  
  
She turns into the bathroom and recoils back as water sloshes over the raised threshold and across the top of her feet. “Brittany!”  
  
Brittany looks up and smiles crookedly. “Thank God,” she breathes out. She’s sitting on the edge of the tub, arms hooked around Beth’s waist while the little girl jumps up and down in her bathing suit, sending more water over the lip of the porcelain tub. “You were missing all the fun.”  
  
“Momma!” Beth yells, stretching her hands out towards Quinn.  
  
Quinn stays in the doorway, though, eyes wide in horror. The tile floor is covered in a fine layer of water, Beth’s clothes completely soaked at the foot of the tub, along with the bathmat, the rug in front of the toilet and the rug in front of the sink.   
  
“Brittany, what are you doing?” she hisses.  
  
Beth turns away when she realizes Quinn isn’t going to pick her up or join her or do whatever it is she wants her mother to do. She reaches for Brittany instead, tugging on the hemline of Brittany’s shirt and pulling enough so that Quinn can catch a glimpse of Brittany’s abs, still toned from the dance classes she teaches at night.  
  
“We’re having fun, Quinn,” Brittany says calmly.  
  
Quinn scowls. The way Brittany says that makes it sound like Quinn doesn’t  _have_  fun. “You’re making a mess. There’s water everywhere.” She steps firmly into the room so she doesn’t slip on the slick tile, and moves closer to the tub, glaring at the two blondes. “How am I going to clean all of this up? It’s going to take for-”  
  
Brittany smiles and pulls Beth a little closer, using one hand to hold the girl steady in the water and the other to catch the edge of Quinn’s sweater, pulling her closer:  _stop worrying and just have fun_. Her thighs brush against the wet edge of the tub and her jeans grow dark, but Brittany’s fingers are sliding against the slight curve of her stomach she’s never been able to get rid of since Beth, no matter how many sit ups and crunches she does. Quinn smiles despite herself and presses her hand against the back of Brittany’s neck, twisting the small strands of blonde hair she finds.  
  
Beth giggles and splashes some more water up, sprinkling it across Brittany’s nose. Brittany laughs and lets go of Quinn, scooping water up and tossing it gently at Beth, dropping her head to the soft spot of Quinn’s hip. Quinn looks around and sighs – it’ll take more clean towels, then they have to clean up all this water, and they’ll have to take a trip to the laundromat earlier than she wanted to this week. But Beth is laughing and Brittany is grinning and the smile that twitches at the corner of Quinn’s mouth is hard to push down.  
  
Quinn looks at Brittany, feels her forehead against the dampness of her sweater, and wonders if Beth will be so easy-going when she’s older.  
  
\---  
  
Brittany’s hands push at the tender muscles in her neck and Quinn drops her head to her chest, sighing in relief. The kids are finally asleep; twelve seven-year-olds crammed into some old Princess sleeping bags that Brittany fished out of her parent’s attic. She’s not sure why she’s so worn out, because Brittany spent the major of the night with them, running after them and making monster noises and racing them to see who could eat the most birthday cake – which she’s sure they’re both going to pay for later. Quinn was in charge of cleanup and maybe that’s why she’s exhausted. She thought  _one_ seven-year-old was a lot, but  _twelve_?  
  
Next year, for Beth’s birthday, they’re going to do something else, something where parents come back to pick their kids up before eight at night.  
  
“How’s that feel?” Brittany asks quietly, kneading one spot firmly.  
  
Quinn moans and rolls her head back, pressing it against Brittany’s stomach. “Feels good.” She closes her eyes and breathes out steadily for the first time since the party started. “Thanks for today.”  
  
Brittany laughs – Quinn feels it more than she hears it. “Today wouldn’t have happened without you.”  
  
“Smartass,” she murmurs, frowning. She feels hair tickling her face as Brittany leans over, kissing her once on the chin before kissing her square on the mouth, lingering.  _A Spiderman kiss_ , Brittany had called it the first time, sophomore year, when they were sitting in the elementary school park, spinning aimlessly on the merry-go-round. Quinn had fallen off and Brittany leaned down, the top of her head brushing the dirt, and kissed her.  
  
Quinn is going to kiss back, but she hears rustling – years of living with Brittany and Beth trying to hide things from her as trained her ear to be more fine-tuned than even Rachel Berry could ever dream – and she sighs again, sitting up straight. “Someone’s up,” she murmurs.  
  
Brittany’s hands push her back into her seat. “I’ll go check on them.”  
  
“No.” Brittany has already done so much, even more than one parent should, but Brittany is lacing their fingers together anyway:  _I’m coming with you._  As they get closer, Quinn can hear someone whispering and she sighs to herself, because two kids awake eventually turns into three, and four, and she and Brittany will never get to bed tonight.  
  
The whispering is familiar, though, and when they reach the doorway, it’s Beth, in the corner of the room, huddled close to her best friend Sarah. Quinn steps over the threshold to tell Beth that she can talk to Sarah in the morning and to go to bed, but Brittany squeezes her hand and holds her against the doorframe, murmuring a quiet “ _hush_.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Beth whispers just loud enough for Quinn to hear. “I used to be scared of the dark too. But Mom got me a nightlight. She wasn’t sure how to make it work, but Ma got it going. And now there’s a little corner of light in my room, so nothing can get me.”  
  
Brittany’s mouth curves up against the back of her neck and Quinn squeezes her hand.  
  
“But that’s all the way in your room,” Sarah whispers back, her voice a little heavier than usual, the way Beth’s voice gets when she’s upset.  
  
Quinn waits for a moment. Beth must have forgotten that the nightlight was all the way in her room and right before she’s sure her daughter is going to give up, there’s some more rustling and a sleeping bag is being unzipped.  
  
“Move over,” Beth orders. “You have to make room for me and Mr. Ballad.” The stuffed duck squeaks feebly, the quacker in its bill dislodged and past its prime quacking-days. “Sarah,” Beth says quietly, her voice filled with a feeling of patience Quinn had never mastered at that age. “It’s okay.”  
  
Brittany drops her hand and winds her arms around her waist instead, resting her chin on her shoulder.  
  
“I can be a nightlight,” Quinn hears. “I don’t really turn on, or shine, or anything, but-”  
  
“You won’t leave, right?” Sarah whispers hesitantly.  
  
In the barely-there streetlight streaming in through the front window, Quinn makes out a Beth-like shape, turning in a sleeping bag. “No way,” Beth promises. “‘Specially since Mr. Ballad doesn’t like all this moving around.”  
  
Sarah giggles softly and Quinn leans back against Brittany, crisis averted. She makes out the Beth-shape leaning up on one elbow and rocking forward; hears the telltale smack of Beth’s chapped lips against skin. Sarah giggles again, even softer than the first time and they rustle around for another moment, getting settled, before Quinn hears a soft  _“goodnight”_  and then silence.  
  
“That was so cute,” Brittany says, grinning, as soon as they get back to the kitchen. “Beth taking care of Sarah that way.” Brittany kisses her gently. “She did what I do when you get all upset or worked up over something. Who knew she had it in her?” she jokes, shutting the lights off and flipping on the small nightlight they put in the kitchen when Beth started getting water on her own if she woke up for some reason during the night.  
  
Quinn looks at Brittany, feels the ghost of her lips against her forehead, and knows that Beth is going to be so loving when she’s older.


End file.
